PARADIGM SHIFT AND QUALITY CONCERNS IN THE REVISED ENGLISH SYLLABUS OF HIGHER SECONDARY EDUCATION

Less scope for self-learning

                The new text book provides the children less chance for self learning. An average and below average student can only depend on teachers for learning the text. Students may find it difficult to comprehend the articles and short stories given in the text. Less number of prompting questions is provided in the text which would not foster the critical thinking of the learners. Adequate number of self-learning questions should be incorporated in the text in order to enrich language learning.

Lack of library facilities

            Most of the higher secondary schools have not adequate library facilities which would adversely affect the reading ability of the learners. After every chapter follow up activities are mentioned. But due to the lack of library facilities students are depending on other study materials or guides and merely copy those materials for their study. This would not be fruitful in the case of language learning.

Measures for quality assurance in higher secondary schools

            Various measures have been taken by the government for ensuring quality in the teaching – learning process. Unfortunately all those measures have not been productive and which become a procedure only. Some of the challenges in the process of quality assurance are discussed below.

Lack of effective orientation programme for teachers

            The orientation programmes for the teachers are intended to enhance professionalism among teachers in order to make the teaching – learning programmes effective. But these orientation programmes are always organised in the middle of the second term. This would not be effective since teachers have already finished half portion of the text. In the remaining time teacher would be in a hurry to complete the units and prepare the learners for the examination.

Lack of source book

            Source book helps the teachers a lot to plan their classes effectively especially when a new textbook has been introduced. But source books were not supplied to teachers in most of the subjects. Teachers are in a dilemma to use what kind of methodology can be adopted in class room for the effective transaction of the curriculum.

CCE monitoring and activities

            Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation is an integral part of the constructivist paradigm. The new curriculum put forward a learning practice that is activity-based and process-oriented. It was widely accepted that process skills like observation and experimentation could be evaluated only by a continuous evaluation process. The activities in the continuous and comprehensive evaluation should be related to the learning outcomes. But the activities are not mentioned either in the textbook or in the source book. Hence there is no uniformity in the CCE activities. The criteria of giving CCE marks are not specified and in most of the school students are given a mark in between 17-20 out of 20. The Directorate of Higher Secondary Education has constituted group of teachers in all subjects for monitoring CE activities. But this monitoring is limited in the collection of mark lists from the schools. The monitoring committee does not properly evaluate the CE works done by the students. In some school no one has come for CE monitoring.

Conclusion

            The higher secondary education system in Kerala is facing a lot of challenges. The most among those challenges is the lack of effective mechanism to ensure quality. More pragmatic measures can be adopted in order to ensure quality.

References

1.      SCERT Kerala (2007). Kerala Curriculum Framework. Thiruvananthapuram

2.      NCERT (2005). National Curriculum Framework. NewDelhi